'It's the midnight hour and we don't have time to fool around'These days, Susan L. Taylor is using her voice to build a powerful brigade of African-Americans who will mentor the young people "falling through the cracks."
During a Mentoring Program Luncheon hosted Tuesday (June 16) at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church by the Memphis Cares Circle and the African-American Network at FedEx, Taylor, founder of the National CARES Movement and former Editor-in-Chief of Essence Magazine, spoke with passion on the need to pass along generational knowledge and know-how.
About 300 people attended and Taylor, the luncheon speaker, called the gathering "a shining example of what should be happening in corporate America." FedEx, she said, was putting financial resources behind a mentoring effort focused on helping those who are "falling through the cracks."
Taylor, 63, wove spirituality, history, research, common sense, humor, humility and sincerity into a conversation that drew a standing ovation from attendees, several of whom left commenting on what "a wonderful human being" they had found Taylor to be.
Nearly 2.5 million African-American children have parents in prison, said Taylor, who painted a vivid image of a ticking time bomb: "It's the midnight hour and we don't have time to fool around. . . .Unity, organization and strategy is what we are missing."
In the face of such a great need, the African-American community is in "repair mode" dealing with "a history of separation," said Taylor. "We must know our history."
It doesn't cost a lot of money to get
done what needs to be done for "young, black, poor children" who need
to be the objects of our focus, said Taylor. And we don't have to be
supermen and superwomen to get the task completed. A certain attitude, however, is a must, she said. "We must take care of ourselves (as individuals). In the right mind, we do the right things."
Don't trip on the every drama in life, Taylor said, noting that stress affects health. She encouraged people to take the view that even pain is information; that freedom of choice is a great gift and that "common sense and love is what is missing."
Taylor told the room, filled with successful career women, that as a result of slavery many African-American women had been trained to be vocal and loud, but it was time to turn down the volume in dealing with African-American men, many of whom were bearing a pain that they couldn't even give voice to.
Two years ago, Taylor was in Memphis speaking to another group when Dr. Sheila Flemming-Hunter, now the coordinator of the Memphis Cares Circle, approached her afterwards and said she was going to take on the National CARES (mentoring) movement in Memphis. She kept that promise.
The National CARES Mentoring Movement, its web site explains, has one purpose: "to end the state of emergency in Black America by connecting you and other caring adults in your network to the mentoring opportunities presently in your community."
Dr. Flemming-Hunter, vice president for Academic Affairs at Rust College and president of the Black Rose Foundation for Children, Inc., said she is determined to help Memphis become the national model for the National CARES movement.
"We are Memphis and we can do this," said Dr. Flemming-Hunter.
SOURCE: Tri-State Defender
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